Ubiquitously Zabriskie

Awoke at 3:30 AM, dressed sloppily, didn't brush my teeth, grabbed my camera bag, and headed for the car. A 35-minute drive from Stovepipe Wells later, and I was at Zabriskie Point well before anyone else. I hiked down into the park, half-running, trying to get to a particular hill I'd spotted roughly a mile-in prior to sunrise.

Sweating, cold, and incessantly sandblasted, I arrived at the intended destination with time-to-spare. I set up my tripod, pulled out some 40lbs of medium format gear, and realized the critical failure of the day -- no filter holder. Somehow, it had slipped out of my bag onto the floor of my car, leaving me stuck with the choice of bracketing my compositions and fixing in Photoshop, or hand-holding filters, and risking blurry images. Paired with the severe winds in the area, most of the images taken were fairly blurry.

Despite the failures of the day, and the physical opposition of the winds, I feel as if I walked away with something presentable. Hopefully, you, the viewer, feel the same.